Should I start a blog?

I have been politically nudged in the past 4 years to embark on a journey of truth seeking. What sparked this? Undoubtedly the catalyst behind my political revolution began in 2020 when the government decided to issue unprecedented healthcare mandates on myself and my children. I do not consider myself a super crunchy mom by any means. My kids eat McDonalds semi-regularly and sugar is their favorite food group. But everything we do comes in moderation and we are a family that values health and fitness. (My kids have literal abs despite their snack time habits). I digress, the point I’m trying to arrive at is that I’m not an extremist. I don’t like strict boundaries, hard rules, and anything that imposes on our authentic journeys in this life.

I found myself being very vocal in the 2020-2022 era of masks and mandated vaccines, lock downs and oppression. Why weren’t more people non-compliant? I wish I would have done more than I did back then. My husband and I were on the same page with vaccine and mask mandates and we basically complied at the simplest levels to get by. I worked from home for myself during most of the Covid era and I wasn’t forced by an employer to get jabbed. My husband fought the good fight and stood strong to no vaccines even though he was forced to wear a mask when others vaccinated weren’t and had to Covid test daily. 

In the winter of 2021-22, after returning to school from Christmas break my child’s school enforced an extended mask mandate that would now lead into the new semester of the year. I was furious. My daughter was 6 years old at the time and was suffering from contact dermatitis on her hands from overuse of hand sanitizer and daily headaches from mask wearing. After a long phone conversation with the district assistant superintendent we decided to pull my daughter from school and informed them she would return when the mask mandate was lifted. 

As you can see, I was as non-compliant as I could possibly be. I spoke out about my stance on social media and found myself receiving a lot of backlash. And not just from “haters” but from people in my life I cared about who had been effected by a Covid death. It’s important for me to shift conversation and reflect on the fact that I understand that Covid (in terms of the virus) was real. I knew it was taking lives. But I also knew that facts were being misconstrued and that false information was spreading like wildfire and I found myself completely stunned at how quickly fear turned the world mad. 

Many don’t know this about me, but upon entering college I had chosen a Pre-Med major at Pittsburg State University. Every class I took ended in -ology and I became very familiar with studies of health and science. I had an ah-hah moment midway through sophomore year and decided “Dr” or “Dentist” wasn’t the best match for me, given the fact that I sometimes talked to my imaginary kids in the backseat of my car. Yes. I’m one of those annoying women who was born knowing I would someday make a damn good mom. I settled on becoming a dental hygienist. The letters RDH would now be a part of my identity and I set out on a decade long journey to make friends with my patients, learn everything about them and help them with their oral health along the way. I loved what I did, until it got in the way of how I wanted to “mom” my way through life. The shackles and chains of a 9-5 became the thing I hated the most about my day to day routine. 

I will spare you with the mundane details but I wound up turning to online marketing within the beauty space and found my new career mission through empowering women via makeup and self-care. I became more present online and found my voice again (that naturally toned down once I became a mom). The shift that happens to women when they go from being a woman to a mother is undeniable. I was told once by a patient I really admired—he was a successful businessman and father, and I’ll never forget what he said. “Once you become a parent you learn there are two types of people in life, those with kids and those without.” This insight has became more and more evident and as we look around in 2024 there is an obvious battle going on between family and the world. 

My online career boomed during Covid because women weren’t leaving the house. Everyone was shopping online and online marketing was the place to be. I grew my following on social media and found myself with roughly 60K people that somehow seemed to want to know what I had to say. Most of the time I was sharing about makeup, but I always stayed true to myself and showcased to women that authenticity within social media did still exist. 

My business has gone through ebbs and flows since 2020 with 2024 being the worst ever. This economy is depressing. Some of my favorite businesses have collapsed and people just aren’t as comfortable with spending money on frivolous things (myself included). I’m sitting here today having a complete full circle moment with the woman I started to become in 2022. The woman that followed her instincts and KNEW what was going on was corrupt and led by someone with ill intentions. 

If I’ve learned anything in the past 4 years it’s this : don’t deny that nudge inside to go after the truth.